ASL – What Did I Learn?

Over this semester, I have taken up learning (or attempting to learn) ASL for my EDTC 300 learning project. I have used many resources and learned various signs and information regarding ASL. Below, I will go through my learning in each week. I had a little rating system for each resource I used, so I will highlight my overall rating out of 10 and explain why. If you want to see more in depth about my rating system check out this blog post. There is also a link to each of the weeks if you want to check out the pictures or videos I used to document my progress and learning. 

Week 1 – Introduction

In this week, I went over different resources that could be used to help start learning ASL as well as my little bit of prior knowledge on ASL, which included things like the alphabet and a couple easy signs like hello. 

Week 2 – Sign Language 101

This week I used Sign Language 101 to start of my ASL learning journey. I have Sign Language 101 an 8/10 because it had really good information to help a complete beginner get started; however, the videos were slightly boring, and there was nothing encouraging comprehension or practice. This week I started learning beginning signs like want, don’t want, eat, sleep, play, walk, deaf, hearing, bathroom, and doctor. Essentially signs that help you communicate the most important things or ideas. 

Week 3 – EdPuzzle Part 1

This week we were challenged to try out a new resource to document our learning project. I used Sign Language 101 like in Week 2 to learn new ASL signs. However, I used EdPuzzle to document that learning. EdPuzzle basically allows you to create a video and attach questions to certain points or times in the video. So, when a student is watching the video either as a class or on their own and a certain point in the video comes up, the video stops, and students have to answer the question before continuing. It also ensures that students watch the entire video not just certain parts of it. If you want to hear more about EdPuzzle and it’s features – check out this blog post of mine!

To see the video I made on EdPuzzle documenting my learning – following this link and type in this class code lafozta or click hereto be taken directly to the video.

Overall, I love EdPuzzle and think it is a great resource that could be utilized in the classroom!

Week 4 – EdPuzzle Part 2

Since I had such a good experience with the experiment and EdPuzzle in Week 3, I decided to use EdPuzzle this week to actually help me learn new signs in ASL. Below are the videos I watched this week:

• ASL Sentence Structure
• 25 ASL Signs You Need To Know
• See it, Say It, Sign It – Letter Sounds
• Let’s Sign It – Common ASL

I rated these videos overall a 9/10 because they were super engaging and I learnt and retained quite a bit of information from them because it was engaging!

Some of the signs I learnt this week include help, cat, sign, finish, great, and learn.  I also learnt that when speaking in ASL the word order goes – time, topic, comment. As wel as if you are talking about somebody it always goes at the beginning of the sentence. 

I also want to especially highlight this video – See it, Say It, Sign It – Letter Sounds – because I actually got to witness it being used in a grade 1/2 classroom during my pre-internship, and how it helped teach the kids the ASL alphabet as well as the sounds of the letters in an engaging way.

Week 5 – Children’s Books

In the spirit of being in the Elementary Ed program, I decided to use children’s book to help my learning. Here are links to the videos/books I used this week: 

• “Hey, That’s My Monster!”
• “How I Met My Monster”
• “Knuffle Bunny”
• “How The Elephant Got Its Trunk”

I rated these books a 4/10 overall because they were interesting and engaging but it was hard to pick up any signs from the videos. The videos of the books went too fast, didnt have any audio whatsoever, or just didn’t make sense. 

Some of the words I learnt this week include parents, short, child, baby, elephant, crocodile, bird, river, and bed. 

This week I used Microsoft’s ClipChamp to help me edit my video. It took my video making skills up a notch and helped me make my video cleaner. I was super easy to use and I really enjoyed it. 

Week 6 – Children’s Songs

Keeping in the elementary teacher mentality, I decided to use children’s songs that were specifically designed to help students learn sign language. Here are some of the videos I watched this week to help me learn ASL: 

• Baby Language Song (ASL) By Miss Patty
• Baby Language Song (ASL) #2 By Miss Patty                                             
• Hi Hey Hello Greeting Song with ASL
• Work Together with ASL Cooperation Song

I rated these songs a 7/10 overall because they were incredibly engaging and I learnt a decent amount of information from them – but they weren’t like the best ever resource to help learn ASL.

This week I tried out iMovie to edit and make my video. iMovie is decently easy to use but has some flaws or tricks to it that are hard to figure out. Between ClipChamp and iMovie, I found ClipChamp to be better and easier to use. 

Week 7 – Radio Songs

I had fun learning from children’s songs last week so I through I’d try to keep up the fun. And let’s just say it was funny but not helpful in my learning process. I used songs like what you would hear on the radio with the ASL translations. I found this website which helped me find videos and songs to use. Her are the links to the actual songs/videos I watched:

• Let It Go
• Pump It by the Black Eye Peas 
• Firework by Katy Perry
• Tik Tok by Kesha
• Party in the USA by Miley Cyrus
• American Idiot by Green Day
• Fireflies by Owl City

These songs were rated, overall, a 3/10, because they were funny and entertaining to watch, but after watching 7 songs lke 10 times each, I picked up 7 signs – so they are very hard to learn from. 

These are the 7 words I learnt: cry, bother, nervous, money, feel, hug, and famous. 

Week 8 – Lingvano

I chose the Lingvano app to guide my learning this week because my phone was listening to me and kept giving me ads for this app. I created a video documenting how the apps works and my feelings on it. I edited the video using ClipChamp which has become my favourite video editing tool I have used so far. 

I rated the Lingvano app a 9/10 overall because it was easy to use and great for beginners. I really liked how the app would continue to test you on things you had already learned while continuing to teach you new things. I also really liked the review feature at the end of each lesson. I allowed myself to go back and look at all the words I had learnt in that lesson and remind myself of the signs for them if I had forgotten. The only bad thing I have to say about Lingvano is that some features are paid, like the ASL dictionary or more advanced lessons. Lingvano was probably my favourite resource I have used so far to learn ASL from.

Week 9 – ASL Bloom

In my final week I decided to try another app to see how similar they are to each other since I enjoyed learning from an app last week. This week’s app was ASL Bloom. 

I rated ASL bloom an 8.5/9 because it is a good app to use to practice and learn ASL for complete beginners. When using an app like this, you do not have to worry about what you are going to learn next and make sure you learn all the important bits and pieces because the app tells you what is important and helps teach it to you. Overall it is a really good website for beginners and has basically the same features as Lingvano, other than the learning review. Which is why I gave it an 8.5/10 compared to the 9/10 I gave Lingvano. 

Conclusion

That is my journey of learning in ASL and learning from technology this semester. I gained a lot more knowledge on ASL – both signs and details like body language and word order. I also found some new tools and resources and got comfortable with using them throughout this semester. I would say I had a pretty successful learning project. 

Thank you to all who read this and all that have helped me along the way.